Impact
by Sir Gimp of Baath
Summary: Yukari reevaluates her life's priorities after an accident. Of course, being Yukari, hilarious chaos ensues. NyamoYukari.
1. DWNI

The prey had no idea it was being stalked.

There were enough twists and switchbacks in the trail to entice me, to raise the attention of a huntress on the prowl. The manmade corridors, painted in garishly unspeakable colors only a school administration could dream of, weren't enough of a deterrent for my keen senses. Soon the prey came into view, standing in the middle of the basketball courts.

The alpha female was surrounded by a group of younger followers, each of their attentions focused on her teachings. Doubtless she was passing on some game to them, that they might frolic and play in oblivion to the predator stalking them, but they had to know it would not help them survive. Their backs were to me, so I could afford to take my time, position myself just right…. And strike.

"HEY NYAMO!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, which I will humbly tell you is really really loud. "LET'S GO DRINKING TONIGHT!"

Nyamo and her P.E. class jumped and flustered, just like I intended them to, so I decided to gloat before any of them could get a word in edgewise. "The cold-blooded stalker strikes again!" To accent this, I added my best predatory grin.

Nyamo turned around last, almost after all of the girls had begun to ignore my presence, and gave that long-suffering sigh that meant she disapproved of some perfectly normal thing I said. The look on her face said about the same thing as the sigh, meaning I was about to get a lecture.

"Yukari…"

Yup, I knew it. A lecture.

"Yukari," she repeated, "We can't go out drinking every night. First of all, I can't afford it."

"You can always afford it," I replied. "What else are you going to spend your money on?"

"Second," she continued, completely ignoring my perfectly sensible complaint, "I don't think this town, or this planet, can survive you getting as drunk as you did last week. That was just…" She shook her head.

"It obviously wasn't that bad, if I still don't remember it. Or is your little gym-teacher brain not able to follow my leaps of logic?"

The whole "stupid gym teacher" thing is a scam, of course. She's honestly one of the smartest people I know, although I can't tell her or she gets all big-headed about it. Mostly I just say things like that to rile her up; mostly she doesn't mind. It's the way our little universe works: we banter, nobody gets hurt.

Not this time, though. She turned away from me, something resembling hurt in her deep gray eyes. There was an awkward silence, the girls in their PE uniforms looking at the scene with no small dose of morbid curiosity. Nyamo seemed to notice them for the first time, and pointed to the opposite corner of the court. After terse instruction to her class to go practice, she looked back at me again. "Yukari, I wish you wouldn't."

This was a Serious Moment, which of course means that I completely blew it. "Wouldn't what? Point out the obvious side effects of your being a gym teacher?"

"I wish you wouldn't insult me like that in front of the students. In private is one thing, even if it's not necessarily something that I enjoy. But in front of the students, you're SUPPOSED to be a professional."

I shook my head and wagged my finger, my best impression of a disappointed schoolmarm. "No, no, no. You don't get it, Nyamo. You're supposed to insult me back!"

She closed her eyes sadly. "No, Yukari, _you_ don't get it. I'm not going out drinking with you tonight. And if you keep behaving like this, not ever."

See what I mean about the big head? Give the girl a shred of power and she abuses it. And a significant shred of power she had, too, for two reasons: 1) I really wanted to go out drinking, and b) she's _really_ cute when she's angry.

So I let go of some of my bargaining chips to defuse the situation. Reluctantly, of course, but I had no choice.

"…I'll pay," I said in as small a voice as I can muster.

She looked at me with some surprise, placated slightly. "Not enough, Yukari. I usually let you ride roughshod over me, but not this time. I… I have a date tonight."

I looked at her with shock. "You have a date? YOU?"

"….yeah." She seemed to make up her mind about something, then looked at me more seriously. "Yeah, I do."

"Well, at least let me tag along. I promise not to kill him. Please?" I was getting even more desperate by the minute, and there was a new objective now. After all, no man I knew of was worthy of Nyamo. I might not kill the guy, but I damn well intended to scare him off.

"No. You'll scare him off again, just like you've done the last seventeen times." Damn, she knew me too well.

"Hey, they were all scumbags anyway. I couldn't bear to see my best friend tied down to a creep like that!"

"The last one was alright. He was a teacher too, remember?"

"He was ALSO," I reminded her, "A mafia boss."

"Just because his last name was Yakuza doesn't mean he WAS Yakuza."

"What? That doesn't make any sense. Of course he was." I thought a bit. "And the guy before that? The pedophile?"

"He said I looked young! It was a compliment!"

"Sure it was. See, Nyamo, this is why you have me. I just bet the next guy's going to be an axe murderer, and if you didn't have me, you'd end up dead in a ditch somewhere."

"Okay."

I blinked. "Okay what?"

"Okay, you can come along. But you're not allowed to act all… weird. And you're not allowed to call him an axe murderer."

"YES!"

"No getting drunk." She was whispering now, as some of her students (Kagura, Tomo, and Osaka, of course) had come around to snoop. I shooed them off with one hand.

"Three glasses?"

She shook her head. "None."

"Two?" I asked hopefully.

"I'm not haggling with you, Yukari."

"Oh, all right." I pouted. "No alcohol for me."

"I'll drive," she said, tugging at one of the two strands of black hair that fell down into her face. "He's…. He's meeting me at the restaurant. The one we always go to. So I'll pick you up, okay?"

I waved my hand, like I always do to dismiss something. I dismiss things a lot, so I'm pretty sure that arm is stronger than the other one by now, from all the extra movement. "No, no, no. I'm treating this time, remember? I'll even pay for your date's dinner… unless he gets crab." The thought of someone other than me enjoying crab filled me with barely-controlled rage, but I brought myself down to stability after a few seconds. "So you don't need to worry yourself about driving, either. After all, that's what friends do!"

"I think you're the only person I need to worry about leaving me dead in a ditch, Yukari. Your driving "style" is going to get both of us killed someday."

"Oh come on. Your lack of driving finesse will drive away guys faster than anything I could do." I pantomimed holding a steering wheel in my hands. "Driving a hundred and forty along a winding ocean road… now THAT'S romance! Where's the glamour in obeying all posted speed limits?"

"The glamour of staying alive." She pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration, as if she wore glasses. I still don't know why she does it, but she does it enough that she's going to get a very narrow nose to go with my strong right arm. "Alright, here's the deal. You want to drive, you don't drink."

I protested at first, but my want to get to the restaurant and back in a timely manner outweighed my need to get sloshed, and did I mention she's cute when she's angry? Eventually it was settled: I'd drive, she and Potential Axe Murderer Man would drink. Despite my seeming alcoholism, I'm not actually addicted to the stuff, it just gives me an excuse to act the way I usually do. I can be just as drunk with or without.

Chiyo took that moment to pop in and ask her beloved Gym Teacher a question about basketballs or something, so I took the same moment to get out of there before my prep period ended.

The rest of the day went smoothly. I handled my classes with my usual mix of rigorous instruction and compassionate life teaching, with a bit of chalk throwing in between. (Hey, the kids get on my nerves sometimes. What can I say?)

I only had a short time at home before the fiasco that was undoubtedly going to be the night's "date", so I took a shower and threw on a pair of khakis and my favorite sweater (Yes, THAT sweater. Yes, I have more than one of THAT sweater. I like it. Bite me.) and headed out the door.

My car was there, trusty as ever: The Yukarimobile. The kids seem terrified of it for some reason, but dinged up as it may be, I love that car to death. Mostly because of all the time I've spent in it with Nyamo, partly because it's so dented that it utterly befuddles police radar. And passing birds.

Her apartment wasn't far from mine, so I got there in less than a minute. Traffic rules are just suggestions, right?

Nyamo was actually waiting outside when I got there, dressed up more than I've ever seen her in her life. I suddenly felt very underdressed and very distracted at the same time—a slinky black number, accentuated by her hair and eyes, set off with a sparkly crystal necklace that set my inner ADD to twitching. She looked damned good, more than usual, and it was for some _guy?!_

Needless to say, when she got in the car and rapidly strapped herself in, I said as much. "You must really like this guy, huh? Putting out on the first date?"

Maybe it was a little harsh of me to say it, and I realized that the question was a little bit out of line just after I said it. Nevertheless, all she did was blush and stammer "Er, um, I don't know, I just wanted to look pretty… just for tonight. Not necessarily for him."

She did look pretty, but the only reason that I was even with her tonight was because of "him". Jealousy burned inside me just as strongly as any of my other emotions, and I just barely managed to growl out a "Sure. Fine." before throwing the Yukarimobile in gear and hurtling across the parking lot.

By the time I had gotten halfway across town, I realized that something VERY weird was going on. There was silence. My half was, of course, because I was sulking jealously. But on any ordinary day, on any ordinary trip out to dinner, she'd be yelling in my ear every time I ignored a traffic light or something minor like that. But all she did was sit there, looking out the window with a "lights are on, but nobody's home" expression on her face.

Of course, I was too busy plotting against Axe Murderer (who I was by now convinced was also a rapist) to pay her odd behavior all that much heed. I now had a dozen different scenarios to drive the creep away from Nyamo, only a few of which actually required that he stay alive through to the end of the process.

The restaurant was as brightly-lit as ever. The mood of the place was semi-formal-semi-casual, such that I was underdressed and Nyamo was overdressed. There were some people standing outside, waiting for tables, a seat at the bar, or just enjoying the balmy spring Friday evening.

"So where did Mister Mysterious say he'd meet you?" I tried to keep the acid out of my voice, but kinda failed.

"Um, outside. He said he'd be in a… business suit."

I looked at her suspiciously. "Do you even know the guy's NAME?"

"Shinji… Tenkawa."

My suspicion increased. "You don't even remember, do you? You just picked a random, fairly common name."

Her shoulders drooped, but her laconic behavior was replaced with sheer twitchy nervousness. In no time flat, she went from 'weeping willow' to 'squirrel on methamphetamines'. "Yeah. I just made it up. I don't remember his name. Mom just set us up for no reason, and I've only heard his name and seen his picture once, and I'm not even sure why I'm here doing this 'cause I haven't been on a date in ages and you're right he's probably an axe murderer and you should probably just drop me off at home."

I dismissed her concerns with my oh-so-powerful Right Hand Wave. (Should I call out that attack every time I use it?) "Hey, you decided to go on a date with this guy. I'll keep you safe, like I said. Hell, I'll even be sober! So let's find this guy, have some food, and then report him and his body burial spot to the authorities afterwards."

She shrugged demurely, exhausted by her earlier hyperactive episode, so I plowed my way through the horde of enemy cars and set a foothold in a fairly decent parking spot. I parked pretty well, actually, seeing as even Nyamo didn't complain about the angle the car was at.

There was one person in a business suit standing outside the restaurant, but it obviously wasn't Axe Murderer: even Nyamo would admit that her "Shinji Tenkawa" was probably not a female. The woman in the business suit looked at us oddly as we discussed her, but she gave no indication that she was secretly a man in disguise.

Fifteen minutes later, there was still no sign of anyone resembling Nyamo's mystery date. She had started out this search as a nervous wreck, but what she had become could only be described as a spastic catastrophe. Suddenly, though, she grabbed me by the sleeve of my sweater and said "Well, it looks like he stood me up don't you think we should go inside and do what we came here to do maybe do you think?"

She marched off into the restaurant right after this, leaving me to descramble her cryptic, punctuation-starved mess of a sentence all on my own. However, I was so happy at the nonappearance of Axe Murderer that I just bounded in after her, plunked myself down on the bar next to where she'd situated herself, and ordered a nice, big plate of crab.

Hey, I was happy, I was with Nyamo, and I was paying. I honestly did feel a little bad about sticking her with the bill so often, but when I was paying it's anything goes, and thus, crab legs.

Nyamo, though, surprised me by ordering a full bottle of sake. A big bottle, too, not the little one that she usually splits with me. The bartender knew me, and didn't ask any questions, but I knew better. "Nyamo, are you going to drown the loss of your Axe Murderer would-be boyfriend in all that?"

She didn't seem to hear me. In fact, she seemed very distracted by something I couldn't see, in the same way that I was distracted by her dress. "Oh. Uh, you can drink if you want. I won't hold you to it, really." She gestured toward the bottle that had just arrived, then poured herself a hefty shot and downed it in one gulp.

I refused. I had promised to pay, and I had promised not to drink. I'm too good of a friend to renege on any promises that I make that don't involve crab. Nyamo just shrugged… and practically crawled into the bottle.

It was truly amazing to watch her go. She wasn't drinking to have fun, this much was obvious. Neither did she seem to be drinking as a social lubricant. Instead, she was downing glass after glass of potent rice wine… just to get drunk. I had seen it before, but I had never seen it before in her.

As the bottle drained, the pile of crab and dumplings shrunk, and Nyamo's inhibitions began to vanish. She started talking more candidly about work, about her students, about her personal life. I would have cut her off after half the bottle, but I decided in the end not to. That was the kind of thing she often did to me, and since she was obviously trying very hard to get discombobulated, I let her. I knew she had her reasons; she always does.

As the night sped on, she got more and more interesting. I was ordering virgin daiquiris, to keep my promise to Nyamo, but she kept trying to spike them with her sake so I quit ordering anything after a while and just watched.

I found out, after a while, things that I could never have dreamed of knowing about my best friend: her political leanings, her thoughts on lemmings, her techniques of self-love (I steered the topic away from that one pretty quickly), and the name of her childhood imaginary friend. I tried to be just as crazy and hyper and psycho as she was, but couldn't; her drunken Yukari-esque-ness caused a role reversal in little old me as well. Now that I knew how Nyamo felt being the sober one, I actually kind of pitied her a little.

The climax of the night, such as it was, was my normally shy and reserved best friend standing up on the bar and delivering the most beautiful, heartfelt (though still terribly off-key) rendition of "Brown Eyed Girl" that I had ever heard. She even managed to get the English pronunciations mostly right! With the startled applause of the bemused bar patrons behind us, I led her back to the Yukarimobile to take her home.

It was late at night by this point, possibly even early in the morning, so traffic was light. Nyamo was falling asleep, but she would occasionally flail an arm or shout out a random song lyric. I was so focused on getting her home before anything bad happened that I actually obeyed a traffic law or two.

Then, a mile or so from her home, I heard her say my name.

The clarity of her voice startled me, as did the intensity in her blue-gray eyes as I glanced over to see what was in the matter. Her drunken posture was gone, replaced with a curiously prim schoolgirl stance. Seriously, her hands folded in her lap and everything.

"Yukari," she repeated.

I looked at her again, hoping beyond hope that she would say the words I had dreamed about for so long.

I watched her lips move, watched them make what I believed were the sweetest words I could ever hear.

Unfortunately, I would never remember them, because at that point the semitruck that I wasn't paying attention to smashed into the rear driver's door of my car.

* * *

_Author's Note: No Azumanga Daioh characters were harmed in the making of this fanfiction. Honestly, I love Nyamo and Yukari too much to allow them to come to any permanent harm. And so, tune in for the next chapter to meet the voices in Yukari's head._

_Please review! I want to know how I'm doin'! _


	2. REM, LSD, DMV!

Void.

Then a brief period of disorienting nothingness, then a few minutes of refreshing oblivion, then back to the void.

When my brain eventually realized that it wasn't an inert lump of Silly Putty, the void resolved itself into a swirling mass of barely-differentiable hues of dark purple and blue. Why purple and blue? I have no idea. Ask Void's interior decorators.

Nevertheless, there I was, floating in the emptiness. It took a few more seconds of mental recombobulation to realize that I was floating around naked, my hair streaming out behind me and all of what Nature gave me hanging out for everybody (which here, meant nobody) to see.

The last thing I could remember was Nyamo's lips, Nyamo's beautiful eyes, and the word "truck". These elements didn't seem to connect together very well, so it took a little bit of mental strain to realize what had happened. When I finally remembered, when that last moment of panic returned to me, when the image of the semitruck in my peripheral vision filled my mind, I swore very loudly.

"Oh, relax your damn potty mouth. You're not dead," said a voice directly behind me.

I turned around and found… myself.

Well, not exactly.

The woman floating there looked like me, had my body and my proportions and my skin tone and my facial shape, and was just as naked as I was. The difference, though, is that her hair and eyes were _made_ of white flames, flickering and casting unshadows on the bruise-colored nothingness around us.

I searched through all of my worldly knowledge, all of my experience of mythology, and the insights I've gained from my travels for a clue to this being's existence. I finally found a theory that matched the facts so perfectly that it could not be disputed: The similarity to me, the flames, the dramatic entrance, and the swirly surroundings all added up to one inexorable, inescapable conclusion.

"You're the final boss, aren't you!"

The entity floated over to me, flaming hair heating the air (or was it air?) around me. Distances were hard to judge in that nonsensical space, but it took her less than a second to reach me and and whack me in the side of the head. "No, you moron, I'm your conscience."

"Ohhhh," I mused. "So you're one of those minibosses where you have to fight an evil version of yourself."

She growled, ever so slightly. "This is not a video game, Yukari. You're not dead, you're just unconscious."

"So one of my party members needs to cast a "revive" spell?"

"Don't make me hit you again." She-who-was-not-quite-me held up her hand, which instantly burst into ivory flames like her eyes and hair. Once again, I could feel the heat. I suddenly realized that it was quite warm already, and any additional heat would probably be unwelcome.

"Yes ma'am."

"Alright, listen." She drifted away a little bit as she spoke. "My name is Ashes. I am your conscience. Your subconscious looks like this," she gestured at the swirly crap around us, "because you play too many damn video games. We've taken the opportunity of your lucid unconsciousness to give you a little… advice."

I'm a master of language, so I caught that the pronoun was plural when it should have been singular. "Who's we?"

"Well, it's not like we have an official name. Maybe figments of your imagination, maybe aspects of your personality." This time, it wasn't Ashes speaking. This new voice was very familiar to me, maybe even more familiar than the first one.

And, lo and behold, there was Minamo Kurosawa, the center of my universe, floating next to the one who called herself Ashes.

She was naked, too. This impacted me more strongly than… well, than the truck did. I had seen Nyamo naked a few times when we were kids, and almost every night in my dreams, but somehow her presence here, in the center of my psyche (or boss battle chamber, I still wasn't sure which) was unbearably intimate. A thousand different urges screamed through my brain and canceled each other out, leaving me with nothing but a buzzing headache and a severe blush.

"I guess figments would be a good word for it," she continued, with me simultaneously unable to pay attention and hanging on to every word. "Like Ashes here said, she's your conscience, and also your ego, your clear, unclouded perception of yourself. I represent your mind's perception of Nyamo, and by extension, everything that you desire." She swept her hands to indicate her whole body, and I nearly blacked out. Then I wondered if I _could_ black out, because I was already unconscious. Then I realized that it would be silly to black out in the middle of a hallucination. Then I blacked out.

When I came to, Nyamo was still there, waiting patiently, while the other woman, my ego or conscience or soul or whatever, was looking really bored and impatient, tapping her foot on the nonexistent ground and looking at the spot on her wrist where a watch would be.

_Huh,_ I thought. _She really is me._

"There is one thing, and one thing only, that we need you to do." She continued like nothing had happened. "We need you to atone."

"Atone for what?" I shouted, suddenly defensive. "I didn't do anything wrong!"

"You see, that's exactly the problem," said my flaming doppelganger. "You haven't really done anything wrong… by your own moral code. In fact, by most moral codes, you haven't done anything wrong besides being kind of a jerk."

"And when you're a jerk to people who deserve it, that's perfectly fine," said Nyamo. "But when you fail to appreciate the people who truly matter to you, like me…"

"…or your students," interjected Ashes.

"…then you need to make up for it. Offering to pay for dinner tonight was a good first step, but it's not all you could have done, and you were really acting out of selfishness anyway, weren't you?"

"If the real Nyamo were this insightful, she'd have filed a restraining order against me years ago," I said.

"And that's why you have me." She put her hands on her hips, and I tried not to look at her, afraid I would black out again… or worse, that I would wake up.

"Okay, okay." If we had been anywhere other than there, I would have sat down in surrender. "So what do I need to do to atone?"

"Make a list."

"A list of what? Like a grocery list?" I counted off on my fingers: "Milk, eggs, bread, beer. I'm a good and wholesome person now!"

"No," Nyamo said patiently. "A list of the things you've done wrong, so that you can set things right."

"I got the idea from an American TV show you watched once," added Ashes.

"So what are you saying? That I need to bare my soul, write out all my sins on a little piece of paper? I'm telling you, I'm not a bad person. I have nothing to write."

"Maybe not," said Nyamo, "but there are a lot of areas in which you can… do better."

I was about to get seriously angry, but it didn't strike me that getting pissed at my own brain would accomplish much. "I can 'do better', huh? How, exactly, do you propose I improve myself?"

"That's for you to decide," my self-appointed conscience said.

"Oh, bullshit. You two are part of my brain, there's no reason you can't help me. Throw me a frickin' bone here."

"Well, for starters you can drive better, dumbass!" Ashes flared up again, her white fire becoming almost blinding. "If you'd been paying attention to the road we wouldn't be having this problem!"

"And the students, too," added Nyamo quietly. "You're a fantastic teacher when you want to be. The problem is that too much of the time, you _don't_ want to be."

"Okay, okay, list. Driving, kids. Anything else?"

"There's one other thing." Ashes gave me a pointed, probing look that would have come in very handy in the classroom. "And you know very well what it is."

Despite all my bluster and sarcasm, behind the façade of wildness and insanity that I'd carefully crafted, I felt a lump rise in my throat. "Minamo."

"That's right." I knew that this Nyamo wasn't real in any way, but it still unnerved the hell out of me to talk to her, especially about… well, about her.

"You can't avoid the subject forever," she continued. "You've known her for most of your life. Eventually you have to tell her that…"

"…that you want to jump her bones." Ashes snickered.

"…or, if you want to be tactful, you could tell her how you feel about her." Nyamo glared at Ashes briefly.

"It's… It's not like that. You live inside my head, you should know. It's not that easy." In all reality, I knew I was being stupid; but stupid was who I had defined myself to be over the years. Breaking out would be hard.

Before either of the others could answer, though, a sound permeated the roiling stillness of the void. _Beep-beep-beep-beep…_

"We'll talk about this next time you're unconscious, I guess." Ashes waved goodbye, her flaming hair obscured by smoke as my vision started to simultaneously lighten and darken. "You have your assignments. Good luck."

Then everything went gray, for an eternal moment…

* * *

I awoke, predictably, in a hospital room. My vision was hazy, and my body felt numb, but I didn't seem to be missing any limbs at first. 

Then a muzzy vision of beauty and messy black hair swam into my sight. "Hey there…"

"Hi Nyamo." My throat was dry, but it wasn't too hard to speak. "I guess I crashed into something."

"Truck crashed into you, actually." She gave a lopsided grin. "Figures that the one time you drive sober, you get into an accident."

"Oh, yeah, I remember now." The memories of that night came back to me quickly; not like a flood, but rather as if I had just learned how to remember things. At the thought of her as drunk as she was, I wanted to make fun of her, my concern for her outweighed my snarkiness. "Are you okay?"

"Aside from a splitting hangover? Not a scratch. The driver of the truck is just fine too, and insists that the crash was his fault. You, though, have been out for about thirty-six hours."

"Damn, I missed Saturday." The seemingly inane comment made me think: Nyamo had probably missed Saturday too, sitting here waiting for me to wake up. It seemed like something out of a crappy soap opera, but somehow it also seemed too good for the likes of me. Why the hell did she put up with me, anyway?

"Actually," she said, "missing Saturday is about the worst of what happened to you. You twisted your ankle and got a bad concussion but otherwise you're okay." She shook her head. "But still, I'm sorry."

"Hah! The great and virtuous P.E. teacher apologizing for a fault?" My muscles decided to listen to me after a few tries, so I hopped out of the hospital bed, screamed in pain from my ankle, collapsed to the ground, then hauled myself to my feet again.

Nyamo, staring at her own feet, didn't seem to notice. "I AM apologizing, though. I'm sorry I got so drunk. I'm sorry I distracted you, and I'm sorry if you don't feel the same wa… wait, how much do you remember?"

"I remember hauling your inebriated ass to my car, and then I vaguely remember getting hit by a truck. Why the hell do you ask?"

"Nothing." She was blushing, but I didn't notice at the time. "Let's get you out of here."

She supported me with one arm and together we walked to the main desk. Ordinarily, I would have done the Yukari Tanizaki thing and refused the help, but being this close to her sapped me of all my willpower. The feel of her arm, the rhythm of her steps, even the smell of her day-and-a-half hospital funk intoxicated me as we shuffled along together. I kept imagining the naked Nyamo inside my brain, and the all-important third item on my "good deeds list".

Number one: be a better driver. Number two: be a better teacher. Number three…what? I couldn't imagine what my brain-munchkins possibly imagined me to do about the situation. Maybe they thought that because I blurt everything else out all the time, I wouldn't give a second thought to just casually confessing a secret attraction I'd harbored for as long as I'd had hormones.

That, obviously, wasn't going to happen, so I started making plans for the first two items on the list instead.

The dumbasses who ran the hospital, though, snapped me back to reality. I had to sign like a million forms just to get out of the hospital, and to get my insurance to arrange for treatment, and for a whole bunch of other stuff I don't even care about. I briefly considered signing all of the forms "God-Empress Tanizaki the Third" just to piss them off, but that would probably make them bring out MORE paperwork.

After half an hour and a small deforestation, though, they finally decided that I was allowed to leave the hospital. Nyamo guided me to a little booth where I changed out of my hospital gown into my real clothes, then we shambled a little more steadily out the hospital doors.

The first order of business, of course, was to check up on my wheels. Fortunately, the impound lot was right next to the hospital.

Yes, I know it's a weird town. Get used to it.

Anyway, the impound lot. It was a short brick building, looking really runty next to the hospital's glittering ivory monolith. It looked pretty stereotypical, too: chain-link fence in the back, with so many impounded cars behind that you couldn't tell fender from tailpipe. Most of them were junkers, but a few of them looked really glitzy—rich kid's toys that got taken away for bad behavior.

Just like any government building, especially one connected with the DMV, there was a line inside. Nyamo took a ticket and I sat down. By the time that my number got called and I was allowed to go stand in line, my ankle was feeling better enough for me to go on my own.

I didn't tell Nyamo that, though, so she kept holding on to me. Hey, I have my priorities.

I was standing in line long enough to make me angry. I passed the time by yelling at the lady in front of us, whose kid wouldn't stop screaming about some toy or other. Then I complained about the length of the line, bickered with Nyamo a little bit about her hair (I thought it was almost too adorable to stand, but I didn't tell her that) and bugged the guy in back of us to tell me where he had gotten his cool cellphone.

After several geologic eras had gone by and Nyamo had threatened to drop me several times, we reached the head of the line. An extremely bland-looking woman sat behind it. She looked more like a living avatar of bureaucracy than an actual human being, with round little glasses and sunken features and hands wrinkled by eons of pointless paperwork.

I knew her type—the principal at Azuma High was a faceless, soulless bureaucrat, too—so I knew how to handle her. "Give me my car back."

"Name, ticket number, and driver's license." She didn't seem to be looking at me; and if she was, she probably just saw me as an entry on a form.

"Tanizaki Yukari." Once again, I had to struggle to leave out the god-empress part. "My ticket number is forty-seven, and my driver's license is…" I took it out of my slightly damaged purse and slapped it down on the table. "…right there."

"Tanizaki? Oh, I don't even need to look this up, I know your name. Your car's totaled."

"No, it's not totaled." This wasn't denial, it was sure hard fact. The Yukari-mobile didn't GET totaled, just like the sun never sets in the east and Tomo never gets better than 60 on tests.

"I'm afraid it is." The bureaucrat punched the little button on her desk that clicked the "Now Serving" sign to the next number. "Next!"

"No, not next." Nyamo was making cut-it-out gestures behind me, but I didn't notice or care. "You're going to give me my car back."

"You have no car that I can give back, ma'am." She had slipped into the politely frustrated tones that master bureaucrats use instead of_proper_ stress-relief like yelling. That meant that I was starting to get somewhere.

"Listen. Give me my car back, and I won't make trouble." I gave her a _very_ dangerous smile. "Because I can make all sorts of trouble, and your anal-retentive ass would hate that, wouldn't it?"

"Ma'am, you can't threaten me. I work for the government."

"No, you mean that I'm just not trying hard enough." I opened my purse, pulled out the spare key to the Yukarimobile, and held it up so the paltry fluorescent light glinted off its surface. "Do you know what this is? This is the key to my car. In about two minutes, this key is either going to be sliding sensuously into the ignition, where it belongs, or it's going to be sliding into your jugular vein, where I'm rapidly becoming convinced that it might do more good."

Before the bespectacled automaton had a chance to respond, Nyamo gently pushed me aside and slid a piece of paper towards her. "Here, I filled out a form ID-ten-T. Now that you have proper authorization, you have no reason not to let this woman go back there and see her car."

Filling out the paperwork like a good little girl seemed just like the sort of thing Nyamo would do, but three things seemed drastically amiss. First of all, the form had nothing at all to do with the situation ("Form for Renewal of Pet Carrier Truck License") and had obviously been grabbed at random from the bin next to the desk. Second, the form didn't have a single jot of Nyamo's writing on it, or anyone else's. Third, there was a 2000-yen bill very obviously paperclipped to the back of it.

In light of this, the paper pusher jerked her thumb at a door off to her left. I grabbed Nyamo's arm again (yes, I know, I have no dignity) and together we left the line and the whole situation behind us.

Once we were outside in the car lot, I gave my best friend a playful poke. "Hey, that was pretty good for a gym teacher! Are you Minamo Kurosawa's evil twin sister or something?"

"Oh, I was just… Just trying to keep you from killing anyone, that's all." She blushed again.

This time I noticed it, but totally misinterpreted it. "Oooh, is my goody-two-shoes friend embarrassed about her devious deed? Buck up, Nyamo, I'll make a proper criminal mastermind out of you yet."

By this time she seemed to have regained her composure. "Yeah, sure, I'd just like to see you try." She pointed to the row of cars two over from us. "Your car should be over there… but keep in mind, Yukari, she wasn't lying when she said that it was totaled. You're just going to be disappointed."

Then we turned the corner, and I saw it.

The once-silver paint job was smashed and bashed until the whole car looked like it was covered in tinfoil. Dents and bulges blended with Bondoed flat segments and duct-taped body panels. More than any other car on the impound lot, it looked as if it had already been through the car crusher.

In short, it looked exactly the same as before the crash. To the bureaucrat's untrained eye, it might have seemed damaged beyond repair, but I knew my car like the back of my hand.

"Hah! I knew it! No semitruck could stand against the might of the Yukarimobile!" I was so excited to see my mostly undamaged car that I let go of Nyamo, took a huge leap towards the driver's door...

...and screamed as my ankle buckled under me again. Nyamo picked me up without any protest, opened the car door, and gently guided me in before getting in herself. The silver monstrosity purred to life, just like always, and so after a bit of adjustment for the ankle we drove away from the impound lot, back to what passed for normality in my absurdly complex life.

* * *

_Author's Notes:_

_One chapter to go! This is the big climax, folks!_

_Thanks again to everyone that reviewed!_

_Yeah, I know the Yukarimobile is her parent's car. I changed it 'cause it seemed a little undignified._

_The TV show that Ashed took the list idea from is, of course, My Name is Earl. I was going to have Earl make a cameo appearance, but…eh._

_I stole the Azuma High thing from someone. If I stole it from you, thanks!_


	3. In Which the Author Runs Out of Acronyms

_AN: Well, here we are, folks, the third chapter. This was quite an experience for me, the first multi0chapter story I've posted that got a lot of good reception. Y'all are so awesome! In fact, you're so awesome that... well, I'll save that news for the afternote._

_Enjoy!_

* * *

Void, again.

By now I was used to it, no matter how creeped out I might have been at first. I floated patiently and waited for my mental chaperones to show up, just like they had in every dreamtime I'd had since the accident.

Sure enough, there wasn't long of a wait before Ashes and Nyamo appeared again, naked and glorious as ever. Seeing Nyamo naked was always an uncomfortable point with me, even more so tonight because I had just "awakened" from a rather steamy dream involving her. I took a minor solace in realizing that she didn't act exactly like her real-life counterpart.

"So." Ashes never wasted any time getting down to business. "Status report. First goal: Improve your driving."

"I'm doing okay. Haven't killed anyone yet, Nyamo seems to be less petrified in the car." The first couple of nights that the two showed up during my slumber, I gave them the silent treatment; I eventually realized they go away faster if I just tell them what's been happening. "After a while longer of this, maybe she'll let me borrow her car."

"Not likely," said my brain's sketch of Nyamo. "Second task: the kids."

"I'm doing some hands-on activities in class today, and I haven't thrown chalk at anyone in three days."

"That's a surprise in and of itself," Ashes quipped. "Third task: Nyamo."

I sighed. "Haven't done anything. I'm too much of a chicken."

"That, we expected. However, fortunately for you, there'll be an opportunity tonight," Nyamo replied mystically. "We'll be sure to give you a nudge in the right direction. You're dismissed."

And so I was; I woke up, horny and drenched in sweat from the dream before. The alarm clock went off thirty seconds later, proving that maybe some part of me was indeed punctual.

I took a shower, ate a cereal bar, and got dressed at a leisurely pace. My alarm was set for an hour before I really needed to get up; that was what I had needed before the Naked Brain Homunculi Show started getting me up at the "proper" time. Just before I started to get seriously bored, Nyamo (for reals this time) showed up at my front door to pick me up for school.

Part of my pledge to be a better driver was to not complain so much when Nyamo drove her way. I wasn't sure she noticed yet, but I tried to make friendly conversation rather than pointing out the shortcuts she could take, and I held my tongue in lieu of goading her to greater and greater speeds. Other than the pain of self-control, it was really quite a pleasant drive.

We necessarily went our separate ways at school, although "separate ways" meant "one classroom apart". I led my homeroom through their morning routine, just like always, but Chiyo broke the pattern by raising her hand.

"Yes, Chiyo?"

"Yukari-sensei, we were wondering…" The prodigy looked around at her classmates for support. "Why have you been so… nice this week? I mean, you're always nice sometimes, but only sometimes are you nice all the time."

"And usually not for this long," added Yomi.

I smiled as sweetly as I could. "Well, I'm just trying out a new teaching style. But I could just be a bitch all the time if being nice freaks you out so badly."

Nobody was offended that I swore in class. They were all used to it. However, they did seem to sober at my threat of backsliding, and for the rest of the morning my classroom was a haven of perfect, if a little overly careful, behavior from the students.

Nyamo and I ate together that day, like always. Nyamo had started bringing enough food for both of us since my "injury," and she was anything but a bad cook, so I went to her room to eat.

As soon as I saw her, though, I felt a very strange sensation in the back of my brain, a cold hard certainty as to what I should do. Since I've never really been certain about all that much in my life before, it felt pretty weird to have a crystal-clear voice in my head saying "TAKE HER OUT TO DINNER." I realized that it must be the "push in the right direction" that my imaginary friends had mentioned, and the voice was unmistakably Ashes', so I went along with it.  
"Hey, Nyamo!" I sat down in a chair at her desk, right across from her, and she pushed the _bento_ in my direction. "We should go out tonight. You know you want to get smashed again…"

She swallowed her mouthful of fried rice before she answered. "No, really, I don't want to get smashed. I learned my lesson before. And you…" She pointed her chopsticks at me. "YOU don't need to drink a lot either. But I won't force you to go sober this time."

"Hey, I forced _myself_ to go sober last time. But that's not the point, I wanna go out again."

"Why do you want to go out now, specifically?"

"Because it's been one week since… last week!" Satisfied with my stupid-sounding but perfectly reasonable answer, I stuffed a spinach croquette in my mouth.

"I guess that makes sense. I owe it to you, I suppose."

"You don't owe me nothing." I patted my wallet. "I've still got plenty of insurance money left, and nothing else to do with it!" That part was true; my insurance had given me a huge amount of money for my "totaled" but still totally drivable car. "I'm takin' you out again."

"Okay, fine. But I'm _definitely_ driving this time."

"Oh, alright. But no more sake for you."

"You drive worse sober than I do drunk, and you know it."

"Hey!" I pouted. "I'm getting better."

"Yeah, I've noticed that. I think that crash was good for you after all."

"Well, it made me… reevaluate my priorities."

"Priorities?" She raised an eyebrow. "You have priorities now?"

"Yeah, I guess I do. You, the students…"

"Well, this is a new side of you. I think I like it."

"Hah! You want to talk about new sides? How about _you_, getting all dressed up in that skimpy little thing for some guy you hadn't even met?"

Nyamo stared at me confusedly. "What guy?"

"Um, Nyamo, I was the one who got a concussion in the wreck, you shouldn't have forgotten. You know, the guy you were going on a date with?"

"OH, him." She blushed faintly and looked at her feet. "He, uh, he ditched me and want on another date somewhere else. I forgot about him."

"Ooh, he was on a date?" I grinned. "A date to go chop someone up, that is. I told you he was an axe murderer. At least you have an alibi for that night, so you don't get pegged as an accomplice."

"Yukari, he's not an axe murderer. But if he's the sort of guy who'd stand someone up on the first date, I guess he's not my type." She set her chopsticks down, having finally finished her half of the lunch. "You're right about a disturbing lot of things."

"Just be glad I saved you from being chopped up." The lunch bell rang. "I have to get back to my pack 'o brats. See you at seven?"

She nodded. "See you at seven."

Again, the rest of the day passed like a blur once I had a date with Nyamo planned. Not even Tomo and Yomi getting into a fistfight could dispel my good mood. (It did force me to put an end to my "no chalk thrown" streak, though.)

Around six o'clock that night, when I was just about to get ready, Ashes' "push" came again, this time saying "DRESS UP THIS TIME, DAMMIT!". It was coupled with a mental poke hard enough to make me jump out of my seat towards the closet.

"Ashes, you are going to regret this," I muttered under my breath. I only owned one dress, and I'd never worn it. My mom and I had picked it out for some date she was setting me up on, but I refused to wear it for the scumbag. He had, I remembered, made a polite excuse and bolted before the entrée was served.

Score one for Yukari.

It was a nice dress, though, and I couldn't think of anyone but Nyamo who I'd want to see me in it. It was cut a lot like Nyamo's was that one night, but it was forest green and strapless. I was normally self-conscious about wearing something like that, but Ashes (or the nameless, conscience-like voice that was screaming into my brain somewhat obscenely, I assumed it was Ashes) started yelling at me to put it on and get the hell on with it.

I was ready getting dressed when Nyamo pulled up. I just went outside and hopped in the car before she had a chance to get out.

"Let's go!"

She stared at me. "Uh, Yukari? Why were you making fun of ME being overdressed? I mean, wow."

She didn't look bad herself, or so I thought. She was just wearing a flowery blouse and skirt—typical Nyamo stuff—but it looked good on her.

"I just wanted to see the look on your face. Jealous?"

"…yeah, actually, I am." She looked away quickly.

I hadn't expected her to respond like THAT, so I was a bit jarred. Nyamo kicked the car into gear and set off towards the restaurant.

"You're jealous? Of ME?"

"Yeah," she replied unevenly. "You look… really pretty. If I didn't know better, I'd say YOU had a date."

"Yeah, well. Um, thanks."

She gave me a glance, then looked back at the road. "You know, I think that's the first time you've actually thanked me for anything in months."

"Wait, really? I think… I've thanked you for stuff."

"Nope. Not really. That's the first sincere thanks I've gotten from you in over thirty days. I've been counting."

"Oh. That… wow, I feel really crappy now, and I haven't had anything to drink."

She smiled sadly. "It's okay. I'm just happy you said thanks even once."

That pretty much cut off the prospect of conversation for the rest of the trip, so it was a very good thing that the restaurant was so close. The silence wasn't uncomfortable or awkward, exactly, it's just that anything I could have said would have been the wrong thing.

The restaurant was a lot more crowded this time, for some reason. The night was even more picturesquely perfect, the moon was bigger and more romantic, and as a direct consequence there were about eighteen million people standing in line waiting to get in, and no parking spots anywhere near the restaurant.

Nyamo circled a while, and finally found a spot that was almost too small to squeeze her little Fiat into. She managed, though, and turned off the ignition.

"So," she said. "Let's go in there and see if we can have a good time without ending up in the hospital."

Then, suddenly, it felt like someone was driving a red-hot ice pick into my brain.

I groaned and held my head in my hands as I was hit by the strongest "push" so far. The previous two had been simple suggestions—_Ask her out,_ and later _dress up._ But this wasn't so much a command as it was a series of very sudden revelations, all triggered by the word _hospital._ A bunch of other words, pictures, and ideas grew around that central concept like a crystal. It didn't feel like a crystal, though. It felt more like someone had shoved Sherlock Holmes into my brain, and he didn't fit.

At the end of the trail of deduction, there was a message from Ashes._Good luck,_ she said, _and I'll see you tonight if all goes well. You know what to do._

"Yukari?" Nyamo was looking at me with concern. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm just fine." I realized I was still doubled over, and straightened up.

"Okay…" She didn't quite seem to believe me. "Do you want to go in, or do you need some time?"

"I need to ask you something first, actually. Nyamo, how did you manage to stay the whole night with me?"

"I was in the hospital, too."

"But they let you go. I knew because you didn't have the dress on any more. So to have stayed with me through that night, you'd have needed to sign in as a visitor."

"Er, so?"

"So the only visitors allowed in at night are family… and spouses. So which did you pretend to be?"

I have never seen anyone turn so red so fast. I'm surprised she didn't get a bruise from blushing so fast, but she KNEW she couldn't lie to me. "Er, the second one. Spouse. Or, I mean, civil partner or whatever they call it…"

"And there wasn't really a guy that night, was there?"

"What do you mean?" she squeaked indignantly. "Of course there… okay, no. How did you know?"

"The obviously fakey name, the obvious excitement when he stood you up, and forgetting him a few days later. Okay, what was with you draining that bottle of sake? I know you don't like to drink that much, and you were drinking to get drunk."

"I was… I was getting up the courage to do something I knew I would regret."

I knew I was in complete command of the situation by now. I could have given her the easy ending, I could have had the scene wrapped up in seconds. But I had to know for sure.

The slightly muggy evening air was seeping into the car, making time flow like honey. Nyamo and I leaned in closer to each other, some invisible force sucking us closer together. Her beautiful face seemed to expand to fill my entire field of vision. "Minamo… what did you need the courage to do?"

Her eyes were already beginning to wetten around the edges, and her cheeks were even more flushed than before as she leaned nearer and nearer to my face.

"This," she said, and shoved me away from her, hard. My shoulder impacted the passenger's side door, leaving me stunned and in mild pain.

I didn't see her go, didn't see her expression as she left the car. I barely heard the car door slam as she left. Even if my eyes had been in the mood to receive input, all I would have seen was a tear-stained blur in the shape of the woman I love running away from me.

My entire brain, in fact, was pretty much shut down. The only thought that dimly flickered was utter, utter shock. This couldn't be happening. It simply couldn't. I knew the signs, knew beyond a shadow of a doubt now what she felt for me. She even sang "Brown Eyed Girl"… that was me, right? The thought that I could have been wrong, that she only saw me as a friend and just now realized my intentions, hadn't even occurred to me. I was all ready for a happy ending, and here I was, left in the dust. Inconceivable.

I had only one course of action now. I had to catch her, had to tell her not to leave, that it was all a joke. I would do anything it took to keep the closest, the most beloved, the _only_ true friend I'd ever had.

Eyes still streaming, I unbuckled my seatbelt, fumbled for the car door… and that's when my memory peters out.

* * *

The next thing I knew, I was lying on the asphalt with Nyamo standing over me, a guilty expression on her face. My back hurt, my head was throbbing, my lips were all tingly, and my eyes felt like I'd been crying.

My brain took a couple of seconds to adjust to the sudden change in scenery. What happened? Had Nyamo taken her hurt a step further and knocked me flat?

"Um, Yukari? Are you okay?"

I sat up, slowly. "Ow. I guess I deserved whatever you gave me. I'm sorry for… that…"

"Whatever I…" She looked confused. "Um, Yukari, what's the last thing you remember?"

"You running away. I was just about to go chase you down, and I got out of the car…" I futilely dug for any further memories. "Then I guess when I did catch up you punched me." That would explain the lips, anyway.

"Um, that's not exactly what happened." She explained as she hauled me to my feet. "See, I wanted to make a big dramatic statement, leaving the car, leaving you hanging…"

"Leaving me in tears."

"I guess. Temporarily. But see, then I opened the other car door, pulled you up, and….um… kissed you. And we stood there like that for a few seconds—really… um…really nice seconds—and then you passed out."

"You kissed me?"

She nodded.

"And I passed out."

She nodded again.

"Well, that sucks. Guess I'll just have to remember this one then."

So I kissed her again. By this time, some of the crowd in front of the restaurant had migrated out to surround us, and many of them cheered and applauded and carried on while we kissed. It felt like a movie.

Finally I broke off. "Hey Nyamo. What do you say we go celebrate? I'm all dressed up and all."

"How about somewhere we can actually get into?"

I pouted. "Aww, but they have the best crab legs and sake here…"

THE END

* * *

_AN: I am, at the time of this posting, a good bit of the way into a sequel to this story. It won't be posted _**_soon_**_ soon, but I should have things ready to post within a month. If I don't, poke the hell out of me, because I really want to get this thing written! Once again, thank you all so much for reading. _


End file.
